Posted on 02/04/2007 1:50:37 AM PST by familyop
Where’s the vision and leadership?
Things are never the way we expect they will be, and so it is today, as we stagger and blither our way toward the inevitable decision about Iran. I had imagined that we would finally face up to the necessity of confronting the terror masters of Tehran after some dreadful event that would compel the president to pound the table and say “enough!”
Instead, it has been more like Chinese water torture, or maybe straws piling up on our national back. Never has a country strained so hard to avoid a conflict as the United States concerning Iran. They have waged war against us for 28 years, and we are only now beginning to contemplate the possibility of a response.
That is about the most one can say on behalf of our feckless national-security team, whose leaders are trying to be a little bit pregnant instead of trying to win this thing. Indeed, even in the face of a torrent of information showing Iranian support for the terror war against us, some diplomats and spooks are trying, in their usual too-clever-by-half ways, to relive one of my favorite jokes, the one about the woman accused of stealing her neighbor’s pot. She says to the judge “I never took the pot. And it was a very old pot. And it was in better shape when I returned it.” Our heroes deny that there is such information, and it isn’t really convincing information, and even if it is convincing we shouldn’t be mean to the mullahs.
This is the pattern that led us straight to 9/11. For that matter, it got us to Pearl Harbor and to Khobar Towers, and to the Beirut bombings of our embassy and the Marine barracks. It is a pattern of denial and self-deception, driven by an absolute conviction that the truth must not be passed on to people whose view of the world differs from your own. And so our kids get blown up in Iraq, while the Bushes, Rices, Rumsfelds, Cambones, Tenets, Negropontes, and their cohorts deny that we know who’s doing it. Deputy Secretary of State Burns, the architect of our failed Middle East mission, goes to Israel to thump his chest and talk about getting tough with Iran, meaning tough talk and a few symbolic gestures, certainly not regime change. Such people talk about “insurgency” as if the shattered remnants of Saddam’s ruined state were capable of mounting the terror war we face, when common sense points in the direction of professional intelligence services in Tehran and Damascus.
We are not alone in this suicidal self-deception. Our friends across the water, those tough-minded Englishmen who have recently decided to abolish the Royal Navy for all intents and purposes, have been frenetically seducing us into one diplomat failure after another with regard to Iran for many years now. It is no surprise, then, that the London Times yesterday quoted British officials are denying there is a “smoking gun” to show Iranian support for terrorists in Iraq. I think the unnamed officials who are saying that are either out of the intelligence loop or lying. American intelligence has known for at least a year and a half that the frightful shaped charges that have killed and maimed so many American soldiers were manufactured in Iran — they traced the serial numbers back to the Iranian manufacturer — and it is inconceivable that we would have failed to share that fact with our British allies.
I can well imagine the debates now raging inside the Bush administration over what is apparently a substantial trove of devastating information about Iranian activities in Iraq, and perhaps also Afghanistan. American officials long opposed to any serious challenge to Iran pronounced the information “a bombshell,” and some of them now say they have changed their minds about going after the mullahs. So those who still want to take the diplomatic route, and continue to appease Tehran, must set up a series of obstacles: first try to keep the intelligence bottled up; if that fails, discredit it; and if all else fails join the “war is not the answer” crowd, whose credibility rests on the hope that nobody in America has read any history.
This debate has its drama, to be sure. But it is not the dramatic event I had imagined, and its outcome is still in doubt. We are not there yet; if we were, we’d have a national commitment to regime change in Damascus and Tehran. We are in the bowels of the bureaucracy, not on the high slopes of strategic vision and inspirational leadership. But that’s our world.
" So those who still want to take the diplomatic route, and continue to appease Tehran, must set up a series of obstacles: first try to keep the intelligence bottled up; if that fails, discredit it; and if all else fails join the “war is not the answer” crowd, whose credibility rests on the hope that nobody in America has read any history. "
That just about says it all, don't it??
"Feckless" is the appropriate word to describe the War on Terror as waged by this country... It pains me to come to the sad conclusion that we may no longer have the Leadership, or the Vision, or the Will to win this, or any other war.
...agreed, and thanks. There are the assorted left-leaning kooks pushing against defense, and we're all aware of them.
But there are also those who want to keep a few extra US import dollars circulating and freight fuel low today. They do so, regardless of the likely near-future consequences of Iran's military buildup and efforts to make more solid military alliances with other unfriendlies.
Supplying terrorists with the means to kill our troops is a causis beli for war.
Bush himself said so.
The time for words is over.
It's time make the mullahs feel some real pain.
L
I don't even watch the news (Fox) or read much news here on FR anymore. So few have the guts to wage a war. This collateral damage BS makes me puke. Were the incendiary bombings of Dresden, Berlin, Tokyo, and nuke bombings of Hiroshima, and Nagasaki "collateral damage free?" Hell no. We killed CIVILIANS to WIN a war! Fast forward 60 years... our soldiers aren't even allowed to shoot back. I've pretty much given up on this country.
/rant
And I'm ready to be flamed for my piss-poor attitude. But until I see Bush give the okay to carpet bomb Tehran, I'll keep my head in the sand. I've pretty much given up on this country.
I love reading Michael Ledeen - "Faster, please."
" And I'm ready to be flamed for my piss-poor attitude. "
No flames here -- the only difference between you 'n me is that I've gotten past the rage to a state of resignation.
We've lost, and in losing, we've lost our national soul. My grandchildren are going to grow up in a much different - and worse - country. I pray that they grow up strong -- they're going to need it.....
A warhead a day keeps the Muslims away, that's what I always say.
I hope you're right. I'm waiting for a talk from the Oval Office like the Presidents old man did when he had a bag of coke he said was purchased right near the White House.
I want to see President Bush holding some of those Iranian IR devices in his hands and show them to the American people. I want to hear him tell us how that very device killed or wounded American troops and innocent Iraqi civilians.
And then I want to hear that the factories which manufacture those devices no longer exist because they've been bombed so hard that one stone no longer stands upon another.
After that I want to hear that the HQ of the Iranian Military Intelligence service has been vaporized along with everyone in it.
Then I want to hear him say that if the Iranians don't immediately cease their behavior he's going to get really, really angry.
L
" And then I want to hear that the factories which manufacture those devices no longer exist because they've been bombed so hard that one stone no longer stands upon another.
After that I want to hear that the HQ of the Iranian Military Intelligence service has been vaporized along with everyone in it. "
I'd dearly love to see this...
Unfortunately, recent history tells us that any strike, if it happens at all, will be half-hearted, "surgical" and Politically Correct.
"Sending a message" just ain't the same as "Victory".
Teheran is the puppet master behind all terrorism. OBL met with Iran to get their verbal backing just months before 911. Iran is succeeding in undermining the western world by terrorism and with under-the-radar support of radical islamite terrorists.
Iran is also succeeding in manipulating the ARAB sunnis to the extent that Iran is poised to take western Iraq. The are no bounds to Teheran's ambitions.
At this point I don't believe we will stop Iran from getting nuclear weapons. That may turn out to be the ultimate cost of the Iraq war - at least due to the way we fought it.
I'm resigned to that fact now.
I do still believe we will eventually fight, but only after a terrible cost in lives. The lessons of WWII have been forgotten.
Agreed. But it seems that that is not going to happen, thanks to the ignorant among us.
Carolyn
Best scenario would be for a multi-pronged, simultaneous hit on iran, syria, and the pakistani tribal areas. And not just military targets. In syria, all damascus power, transportation, and military infrastructure, in pakistan every village along the border followed by boots on the ground, in iran all manufacturing, refining, military, and hydro. Until they all cry "unconditional surrender."
But we won't do it, because our application of force isn't pre-emptive. Instead, there will be cruise missile and bombs on ied factories and several of the nuke sites in iran alone.
The application of force you suggest would not, in fact, be "pre-emptive" as I'm sure you will agree. Iran has been at war with the US since 1979. Force has been used by both sides, mainly covert by the Iranians. I agree, it is long past time that the US openly engage the enemy.
Also, like M. Ledeen said, they have been at war with us for 28 years, (since, of course, they seized soveriegn US territory in 1979), we just have never responded with miliary retaliation.
Boy, for all the Libs that say we need to be patient with Iran - IT'S BEEN 28 DAMNED YEARS - isn't that patient enough for 'em?
Imad Mugniyeh...
This guy is a one man crime wave...He tortured and killed William Buckley in 1983 and is the head of the Iranian terror organization in Lebanon.
Right. Pre-emptive IMHO to the impending overt iranian and syrian ground and nuclear war against iraq.
Let me make a, to be sure, incomplete list of Bush mistakes:
1. Bush did not insist on an explicit declaration of war.
2. Bush did not start a comprehensive information strategy to fight this ideological war.
3. Bush has fought the war not to win, but to avoid losing.
4. The Libs should actually love Bush for how he's fought this war in such a PC manner. You can't attack terrorists shooting at you in Mosques. WTF?
5. Right after the toppling of Saddam's statue, Sec State Col. Colin Powell went to Damascus on bended knee to assure Baby Doc Assad that the US would not invade Syria. Ah, this was plain stupid.
6. A coup pushed Hugo Chavez out of power, the US overturned the coup and put Chavez back into power. Huh?
7. Bush won't go after terrorists and their State supporters where he can find them. He's leaving terrorists safe havens.
8. Iraq and Afghanistan cannot be pacified when Iran and Pakistan and Syria are allowed to remain safe havens to launch attacks.
9. Regime change must be the goal in Syria and Iran.
10. Coming out in support of a Palestinian State without the Pallies completely fulfilling their obligations of ending terrorism was off the charts stupid. Now, we're giving Fatah (the PLO) $86 million to fight HAMAS (Terrorists from column B) and what have we got in return.
11. The Federal government bureaucracy from State, the CIA, the EPA to the JustUs Department have conducted a war on the Bush Administration. Bush has basically gone along with his saboteurs and stabbed his supporters in the back. Can you say Scooter Libby? Can you say one NY Times leak of a war program after another? Can you say support for man-made Global Warming? Can you say open borders and amnesty for illegal aliens and nonchalance in the face of a foreign invasion?
12. Bush and the GOP have been unwilling, unable or simply complicit in the assault on their political base and supporters. They won't defend themselves from political attack, they won't defend us from political assault. And they don't seem to be able to defend America from her enemies and win the war. That's why they lost and will continue to lose until they go balls out for victory.
13. Hmm, what are the chances for Victory, when your leaders include Hagel, Warner, Graham, Snowe, Collins?
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